Kansas man gets 15 years in prison for putting baby in trash

Jul. 16, 2017

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been ordered to spend more than 15 years in prison for abandoning his infant stepdaughter in an apartment complex trash compactor.

Marquis Young, 28, was sentenced Friday in Douglas County. That's where he pleaded no contest in May to reduced charges of aggravated battery and child abuse, the Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/2v1p6mO ) reported.

Young initially was charged with attempted first-degree murder after the baby was found in July 2016 in the trash bin. The then-9-month-old suffered two skull fractures but has recovered.

Young's wife, Sheena Young, testified she went to spend the night with friends after an argument and left the baby with her husband. He had been drinking and told investigators he couldn't remember what happened during the night. Blood on his shirt matched the infant's DNA.

Young's attorney, Adam Hall, said Friday that the child "is doing very well" now and that the harm inflicted upon her wasn't long-lived. Hall said his client "lacked judgment" because of heavy intoxication and prescription drug use at the time, and that Young "expressed devastation and fright at the thought that she was missing."

Hall said that while Marquis Young's name is on the baby's birth certificate, he is not her biological father.

Prosecutor Mark Simpson countered that Young gave the baby two small fractures while she was in his care, and that the trash bin also compacted trash.

"If people had not intervened, she would have been killed," Simpson said.

Marquis Young, who declined a judge's offer to address the court Friday, still faces a 2016 charge of domestic battery.